Chapter XIII: Book III (2)

But dramatic poetry in Portugal required some particular excitement to make it keep pace with the new cultivation of the nation; and an impulse of this kind was given when the Lisbon academy of sciences, which, during the last twenty years of the eighteenth century, was constantly embracing new objects, turned its attention to polite literature. The academy offered a prize for the best tragedy in the Portuguese language. Competitors came eagerly forward. But none of the tragedies which have been crowned by the academy, obtained so much popularity as the _Osmîa_ of Dona Catharina de Sousa.[391] It is probable that no other female writer who has acquired celebrity in the eighteenth century, could have produced such a work, though, perhaps, in other respects she might rank higher as a poetess than Catharina de Sousa. The fable of the tragedy, according to the conditions required by the academy, in the year 1785, is selected from the Portuguese national history. Three tragedies were produced within the space of three years. In the year 1788 the academy awarded the prize to _Osmîa_; and on opening the sealed note, in which the author’s name was supposed to be inscribed, it was found to contain only a reference to a prize question respecting improvements in the cultivation of the olive in Portugal, with a request that the academy would apply to that object the prize which was renounced for the tragedy of Osmia. But the equally generous and ingenious authoress soon became known. The tragedy was first printed without her name; but a second edition was published in the year 1795. It owes its celebrity not merely from the circumstance of its being the production of a female pen. In several scenes of this drama, tragic pathos is, in the happiest way, combined with an elegance which from the sex of the writer was more to be expected than the former quality. The subject is chosen from the history of the ancient inhabitants of Portugal, rather than of the Portuguese. A story from the age of romance would have better fulfilled the idea of a national tragedy; but Dona Catharina de Sousa, in the spirit of modern cosmopolite education, in a great measure formed by French reading, followed the Gallic taste even in a predilection for the Roman age in tragic drama. Osmia, the heroine of the tragedy, is a Lusitanian Princess of the race of the Turdetani, who in the second century of the Christian era, sought to emancipate themselves from the Roman yoke. She is, contrary to her inclination, united to Prince Rindacus, who heads the Turdetani in their insurrection against the Romans. Osmia combats like a heroine. The Turdetani are, however, defeated; Rindacus disappears, and Osmia is made prisoner by the Romans. The Roman Prætor Lælius becomes deeply enamoured of the fair captive, and she in her turn is not indifferent to his passion. With the principal persons thus situated the developement of the dramatic action commences. The composition would doubtless have been much more rich and brilliant if the authoress had not so rigorously confined herself within the rules of French tragedy. The Roman characters appear modernized in the French style. In this very absurd way the Prætor Lælius is drawn. On several occasions he complains of his “poor heart” in as doleful a strain as a hapless lover of modern times. But in the delicate representation of the relationship of Osmia with the Prætor, and with her rude barbarian husband, the sentiments of a noble-minded woman are painted in such a manner as none but a woman could paint them. The tragic grandeur of the composition rests on the character of Osmia, who will not on any consideration render herself unworthy of her noble descent. The loftiest pride of patriotism contends in her bosom with love for the Roman Prætor, whom she wishes to hate, but whose tender generosity she feels less and less power to resist.[392] The feminine heroism of her character thus acquires a pensive gentleness, which renders her, as a woman, more and more interesting in every scene. The character of Osmia is forcibly relieved by contrast. A Turdetanian prophetess, who is also among the number of the captives, burns with national pride and hatred of the Romans; and her energetic but unfeminine patriotism is the means of constantly producing tragic concussions in the train of the events, until the husband of Osmia unexpectedly re-appears. The authoress has been eminently successful in the gradual heightening of the tragic interest.[393] She did not venture to shed blood on the stage. The death of Osmia is related; but at the end her husband enters wounded and dying. Notwithstanding the simplicity of the composition, the tragedy comprises a considerable share of action. The rapid flow of the dialogue in some of the scenes, approximates more nearly to the tragic style of Voltaire, than to that of Corneille and Racine. The language is dignified throughout; though in some scenes it is deficient in poetic keeping. But according to the rule which the authoress herself was accustomed to consider as the only correct one in the estimation of dramatic perfection, she could not avoid faults which she theoretically regarded as beauties. The present is not the proper place for analysing the individual fine passages of this tragedy. The feminine character of the whole composition, however, well merits a minute analysis in a theory of poetry.

FAILURE OF OSMIA ON THE STAGE--PREVALENCE OF DRAMATIC IMITATIONS AND TRANSLATIONS.

The great difference between such a tragedy as Osmia and the dramatic entertainments to which the Portuguese public were accustomed, must have impeded the good effect which under other circumstances might have been produced by the prizes which the academy of Lisbon continued to offer. Osmia was performed; but it did not obtain a favourable reception from the public, and some similar tragedies by which it was succeeded experienced nearly the same fate. The Italian opera maintained its consideration in Lisbon; and the dramas which have since been produced on the Portuguese stage, are for the most part, either imitations of foreign pieces or translations. No modern Portuguese poet seems to have attempted to pursue the path of dramatic composition in the style of the Spanish comedy, and to carry it forward from the point at which Gil Vicente had stopped. Of the modern Portuguese comedies in the French style those from the pen of Guita have the highest reputation. But the Portuguese appear still to cherish as a favourite dramatic entertainment, the burlesque and truly national _entremeses_ (interludes) which have either risen out of the Spanish compositions of the same class, or have with them one common origin.[394]

RECENT PORTUGUESE POETS:--IN PARTICULAR TOLENTINO DA ALMEIDA.

Among the latest Portuguese poets of eminence, may be numbered Manoel de Barbosa du Boccage, Francisco Bias Gomez, Francisco Cardoso, Alvarez de Nobrega, Xavier de Matos, Valladares, and Nicolao Tolentino de Almeida. The last mentioned writer seems to be greatly admired for his poignant satires, which have for their subject various local relations in Lisbon.[395] The wit of this poet, whose writings betray much dissatisfaction with his lot in life, is not always intelligible to a foreigner; but he evinces a decidedly national spirit, which when combined with the representation of modern manners, becomes peculiarly interesting.[396] In the works of Tolentino are revived most of the ancient national metres of the Portuguese in redondilhas.[397]

ARAUJO DE AZAVEDO--HIS TRANSLATIONS OF ENGLISH POEMS.

It would be unjust to close this History of Portuguese Poetry, without recording the name of Araujo de Azavedo, minister for foreign affairs in Lisbon, a writer of talent and learning, and a statesman to whom his country and its government is much indebted. His excellent translations of Dryden’s Alexander’s Feast, some of Gray’s Odes, and the Elegy in a Country Church-yard, are truly valuable acquisitions to the national literature of Portugal. His object in making these translations was to direct the attention of his poetical contemporaries to the hitherto unexplored side of the Portuguese Parnassus; and it may be expected that genius will readily follow the tract of such a guide.[398]

CHAP. III.

HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE ELOQUENCE, CRITICISM, AND RHETORIC, DURING THIS PERIOD.

_Further Decline of Portuguese Eloquence._

Before it was possible for any thing like true eloquence to find a place in Portuguese literature, public spirit had to revive from that state of feebleness and apathy into which it had been plunged by the rapid decline of Portugal from the pinnacle of national glory. It was indispensable that a time should return in which the human mind might move with somewhat more freedom in the trammels of ecclesiastical tyranny. The nation had to become once more capable of contemplating great objects. The national taste was to be reclaimed from the affectation of pompous phraseology, and it was necessary that the spirit of philosophy should be allowed to make suitable approaches towards the spirit of poetry. But these, and all the other conditions requisite for the revival of polite prose in Portugal, were never more decidedly wanting than precisely at the period when the introduction of French manners seemed likely to infuse a French taste into the national literature. But reckoning from the latter end of the seventeenth century, the imitation of French taste had operated for a considerable time, and yet had influenced only the forms of social life. Its presence in Portuguese literature, was scarcely perceptible. It has already been shewn that during the first half of the eighteenth century, Portuguese poetry, even in the hands of the few poets who were not unwilling to learn elegance from the French, continued subject to the style of the Gongorists and Marinists. Of course still less was it to be expected that Portuguese writers should be capable of imitating the polite prose of the French, since such an imitation would pre-suppose a cultivation of the understanding which at that time was not practicable in Portugal. The French taste in so far as it really found admission into Portugal, doubtless contributed at first, as about the same time its adoption did in Germany, to repress the loftier style of eloquence, for the language became so corrupted by foreign words and phrases, that it was difficult for the prose writer to know what tract it was proper to follow. The poet might, if he pleased, still adhere to the style of the sixteenth century; for his language was not like that of prose composition, subject to the laws of fashion. But no author could attempt classic prose, in the language of the sixteenth century, without encountering the risk of being regarded as a pedant by his contemporaries; and if he wished to follow the fashion, he was obliged to disfigure the language in which he wrote.

A few works of research which were written during the first half of the eighteenth century, are, with the exception of books of devotion, almost the only compositions which still preserved a kind of national prose style in Portuguese literature. Barbosa Machado’s great national Dictionary of Learned Men, is not written without rhetorical care. The author wished to express himself with correctness and elegance, particularly where he uses the language of panegyric, but even then he could not avoid frigid and pompous phraseology; and some phrases, which he seems to have admired, are constantly recurring in the work; as for example when he calls a poet “one of the most melodious swans of the Portuguese Parnassus,” without considering that Parnassus is neither a river nor a pond. A few affected metaphors were the only recognized beauties of prose composition at this period in Portugal. Didactic prose could no longer exist when the philosophic and scientific cultivation of the Portuguese became daily more abridged, and was almost limited to the small remnant which was taught in the cloisters and the colleges of the Jesuits. The lectures which under these circumstances were delivered in the academies, were considered to have sufficiently fulfilled their objects if they did not lull the auditors to sleep. The art of historical composition was now completely extinguished in Portugal.

NEW CULTIVATION OF ELOQUENCE--CLASSICAL PROSE AUTHORS STILL WANTING IN MODERN PORTUGUESE LITERATURE.

In the second half, and more especially during the last thirty years of the eighteenth century, the spirit of improvement was awakened, and began to diffuse itself into every department of Portuguese eloquence. The admirable clearness, precision and facility of the French prose, has at length exercised an advantageous influence on the Portuguese. Without enforcing with pedantic rigour the restoration of all the old forms of the sixteenth century, the best Portuguese authors now endeavour to write their mother tongue with purity, and at the same time to satisfy the new wants created by the progress of time and the spirit of the age. The praiseworthy diligence which the Portuguese now manifest in collecting scientific knowledge of every kind, and in republishing the works of their early authors, appears, however, to have operated indirectly to the prejudice of eloquence, for among the men of talent, to whom Portugal is indebted for her regeneration, none have yet distinguished themselves in prose composition. But the Portuguese have had so many things to retrieve, that they have scarcely had time to devote particular attention to the rhetorical form of didactic works. An effort to avoid the bad taste of the preceding age, and upon the whole to cultivate a clear and dignified form of expression, is perceptible in most of the modern treatises of the Portuguese. Empty bombast has given place to the language of reason. The Portuguese nation have now to wish for a modern historian qualified to tread in the footsteps of Barros, Brito and Andrada. Such a writer might succeed in still more firmly rivetting the connecting link between the promising present and glorious past in the hearts of Portuguese patriots.

ROMANTIC PROSE--TRANSLATIONS.

A new era of romantic prose might also have been commenced in Portugal, had the poetic spirit of the old Portuguese pastoral romances been modified, instead of being enfeebled by the introduction of the cultivated forms of modern prose. Translations of foreign novels seem to have too readily satisfied that portion of the Portuguese public, whose cultivation was, through this species of reading, gradually approximating to the taste of the other nations of Europe. A translation from the French of Le Sage’s popular Gil Blas was supplied by the poet Barbosa Du Boccage, who is probably descended from a French family. This was soon followed by translations of the Moral Tales of D’Arnaud, and of various works of a similar description.

PORTUGUESE CRITICISM OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

The progress of genuine prose in Portuguese literature during the eighteenth century, may, upon the whole, be estimated by the style of Portuguese criticism in the same period. It may be presumed that the authors of critical treatises on literary subjects, endeavoured by their own prose to shew the relationship, which, according to their opinion, ought to exist between poetry and eloquence; and it is certain that the principles on which they wrote precisely corresponded with the rhetorical cultivation of the age, within the boundaries of Portuguese taste. These theoretical labours, in their relation to Portuguese poetry and eloquence, deserve to be particularly noticed.

ERICEYRA’S INTRODUCTION TO HIS HENRIQUEIDA.

A new epoch in Portuguese criticism seems to commence with the critical treatises of the Count da Ericeyra; for this writer studiously availed himself of the principles of French criticism, and his authority gave full effect to the example he set. But there was more of semblance than reality in Ericeyra’s appropriation of French criticism. He had too little feeling for the essence of poetry to be able to modify the idea of beauty according to French principles of correctness, without losing sight of the true foundation of that idea. With all his critical rules, therefore, he never rose above what may be termed the external apparatus of poetry. Within that apparatus his taste was altogether circumscribed. His general opinions on poetry are developed with sufficient clearness in the copious introduction to his _Henriqueida_,[399] and in the explanatory notes which he has attached to that epic composition. The introductory dissertation is written in good prose; but the observations which the author makes on the subject of epic poetry, partake more of prosaic than of poetic views. The subject with which the Count da Ericeyra’s critical essay commences is imitation; but, composing in the spirit of his own system, he first speaks of the celebrated poets whose works he had imitated, and afterwards of the imitation of nature. He speaks of Homer with emphasis; and yet at the same time acknowledges that he was acquainted with that poet only through Madame Dacier’s prose translation. Under these circumstances he reasonably enough speaks with still greater emphasis of Virgil, whose works he could read in the original. Of all human works, Virgil’s Æneid, in the opinion of Ericeyra, approaches nearest to perfection.[400] On the other hand, he says, that Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, belongs more properly to the class of romantic tales of chivalry, than to epic poetry; but that it is nevertheless worthy of imitation on account of its pleasing narrative style and the “fertility of poetic genius,” which the Count acknowledges Ariosto to possess. Voltaire’s Henriade, however, which was then the newest epic production, is pronounced to be particularly distinguished for its “elevated and natural poetry.” Ericeyra takes this opportunity of more accurately defining his theory of perfection in epic poetry. It belongs, in his opinion, to a perfect epic action, that the hero of the poem should as much as possible be kept present in the scene of action. On epic machinery Ericeyra pronounces nearly the same judgment as Boileau, namely, that when a modern introduces into his poetry the Christian system of the ancient mythology, the pleasure to be derived from epic composition is destroyed. Even the Jerusalem Delivered, would be a tedious work, had not Tasso enlivened the “pious melancholy of the subject” by the introduction of magic and by other means. The example set by Camoens, who introduced into modern poetry all the mythological deities as allegorical characters, is recommended as highly worthy of imitation; but nevertheless Tasso’s plan is not to be altogether condemned. Ericeyra makes some very judicious observations on the epic treatment of real history. Lucan, he says, was the first who disfigured epic poetry by writing merely as a poetic historian; and he attributes the ill success of the Spaniards in epic poetry to their having always preferred Lucan to every other model. His remarks on the epic character are no less correct; and his opinions on language and style are such as might be expected from a man of sound and cultivated understanding. He praises the dramatic style of Corneille, Racine and Moliere. From these authors, he observes, a writer may learn how to express naturally the heroic and tender passions in their full force, and without the false glare which disfigures the works of many modern and also some ancient poets. Thus the Count da Ericeyra endeavoured to vindicate his own poem before the tribunal of the public. The most remarkable circumstance with respect to the whole treatise is the little value which the author attaches to poetic allegory. When it is recollected in what esteem allegory was held by the early Portuguese critics, Ericeyra’s treatise, though in other respects unimportant, and only interesting in its connection with the whole of Portuguese literature, will be recognised as at least a step gained in literary criticism.

GARÇAÕ’S LECTURES.

Among the treatises of criticism by which it was hoped, about the middle of the eighteenth century to reform the taste of the Portuguese, some consideration is due to those written by Garçaõ, the imitator of Horace.[401] They are in the form of lectures, and were delivered in an assembly called the academy of the Portuguese Arcadians. On this account they are also entitled to rank among works of oratory. In two of these lectures, Garçaõ zealously defends the Aristotelian theory of tragedy in its application to the modern drama. He insists on obedience to the rule of not shedding blood on the stage. Accordingly he commends the French drama; and notices Addison’s Cato with approbation. His opinion, on this point, he conceives is sufficiently supported by these two remarks--1st. That to fulfil the object of tragic art it is not necessary to shed blood on the stage--and 2dly. That it is improper, because at an intellectual entertainment disgusting objects should not be presented to the eye. Garçaõ appears also to have understood in the usual way the condition of Aristotle, that tragedy should refine the passions of the spectator. He expatiates much on the moral utility of a perfect tragedy, through which the theatre might, in his opinion, be easily converted into an excellent school of morals. To this effect the opinions of the French critics Le Bossu and Dacier, are industriously cited in concert with those of Aristotle. Both lectures were given in the year 1757. The main object of a third lecture which Garçaõ delivered to the same society in the same year, is to demonstrate that the imitation of the classic poets of antiquity is one of the most essential requisites of modern poetry. He observes that the judicious and the servile imitator must not be confounded together, for that the latter is in fact merely a plagiarist. Garçaõ himself seems, however, to have been somewhat puzzled to make out this distinction; for he asserts that Camoens has in his pastoral poems imitated Virgil in the same manner as Virgil has Theocritus. A skilful imitator, he says, may excel the poet whom he imitates, as Horace has in many passages excelled Pindar. At the same time it must be allowed, that these and the following lectures of Garçaõ possess the merit of pure, natural, and dignified language; and that in several passages they display true eloquence.[402] Garçaõ, who felt a patriotic interest in the improvement of the polite literature of his country, expected that the academy of the Portuguese Arcadians would by its exertions revive the good taste of the sixteenth century. Only such a society, zealously competing for the welfare and honour of the country, can, he says, become “the Alexander who will cut this gordian knot of bad taste, the Achilles who will conquer this Troy.”[403] But it appears that he appealed to his Arcadians in vain. Their literary patriotism was of a very passive character; and the advantages which Garçaõ hoped this society would procure, were destined to be obtained through another.

PHILOLOGICAL AND CRITICAL TREATISES OF THE ACADEMICIANS JOAQUIM DE FOYOS--FRANCISCO DIAS--ANTONIO DAS NAVES, &C.

Among the literary treatises (_Memorias de Litteratura_) published by the Royal Academy of Sciences in Lisbon,[404] are to be found the latest contributions to Portuguese criticism and eloquence; and that society may justly boast of the well directed efforts of its members to promote the literary cultivation of the nation. At the head of these literary treatises, there appeared in the year 1792 a remarkable essay on Portuguese pastoral poetry by Joaquim de Foyos.[405] This treatise served at once to record the unconquerable predilection with which the Portuguese adhered to their pastoral poetry, and the new freedom of opinion which ventured to shew itself in opposition to the oracles of French criticism. Joaquim de Foyos asserts, that pastoral poetry must be the oldest, and consequently the most natural and original style of poetry. In the history of human nature, he observes, the shepherd’s life is in the natural course of the transition from barbarism to social cultivation. It is, he adds, precisely in this stage of the developement of human wants and energies, that the mind is particularly awakened to poetic activity: and as in pastoral life man is surrounded by the sweetest tranquillity of nature, so must pastoral poetry be the true poetry of nature. Joaquim de Foyos has indeed related consistently with his own notions, the history of mankind and poetry in a way which is well calculated to set forth the particular merits of bucolic composition: otherwise history might soon have convinced him that pastoral life has scarcely ever been the passage from the savage state to civilization: that the kind of pastoral state which favours the ground work of bucolic poetry, has only arisen under particular circumstances in a few places; and has, even there been of little advantage to poetry: that Greek poetry no more originated in Arcadia, than German in Switzerland: that the oldest Greek poetry exhibits no trace of the pastoral character: that Theocritus first devoted himself to this style of composition at the voluptuous court of the Ptolemies in Alexandria: and that its revival in the romantic age, like its birth in Alexandria, presupposes a degree of social cultivation, whence the human mind longingly reverts to a more natural existence, on which it at last bestows ideal beauties. Joaquim de Foyos judges of the French critics by more just principles. He observes, that these critics, of whom Le Bossu may be placed at the head, deduce numerous chimerical rules from what they term the morality of a poem. Dacier, he says, has also misunderstood Aristotle in wishing to render the story of a poem a sort of Æsopic fable. The ingenious and elegant Marmontel has fallen into the same error.

A philological treatise in the form of a dictionary, by Antonio Pereita do Figueiredo, on the genius of the Portuguese language, according to the Decades of Barros,[406] though not immediately connected with poetry and rhetoric, is nevertheless worthy of honourable notice, since it is calculated to direct Portuguese writers to the study of Barros, and the spirit of their mother tongue. Another treatise by the same writer, has for its object to recommend Barros as a model for Portuguese eloquence.[407]

The analysis of the poetic language and style of Saa de Miranda, Ferreira, Bernardes, Caminha and Camoens, by Francisco Dias, is more useful than most of the treatises of the same kind previously written in Portuguese.[408] The investigations of this intelligent writer are philological rather than critical; but the critical observations which he introduces are dictated by a clear judgment and just feeling. The improvements which Saa de Miranda effected in the poetic language of the Portuguese are here exhibited in their true light. Even the latinisms of Ferreira are placed in an advantageous point of view by the author. He speaks of Camoens in terms of enthusiasm; but in the encomiums which have lately been bestowed on Caminha, Dias does not concur.[409] The treatise is, upon the whole, very well written.[410]

An Essay by Antonio das Naves Pereira on the proper use of the language of the Portuguese writers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, abounds in judicious critical remarks.[411] It is written expressly to condemn the gallicizing (_a Francezia_) of modern Portuguese. This learned philologist and critic is likewise the author of a comparative view of the language and manner of the principal Portuguese poets with particular reference to the peculiarities of each style of poetry.[412]

The want of a work which might in the strict sense of the term be called a complete theory of criticism, does not appear to have yet been felt by the Portuguese. A compendium of rhetorick by Antonio Teixeira de Magalhaens was published in the year 1782;[413] and a few years after a French art of rhetorick by Gisbert, as translated into Portuguese.[414]